Deep Trouble
by Left Hook
Summary: A hunt goes bad in New Hampshire. Sam gets into a bit of a bind with a witch, and Dean isn't sure how to fix it. Hurt!boys: Language & violence.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This grew out of a scene I've been kicking around for some time. Set sometime post season 1. No spoilers for season 2, though. Please review!

**Rated T+** for a lot of language and a little Sam h/c.

* * *

One might say Dean Winchester had a love-hate relationship with the female sex. The love part was pretty simple: he loved them as often (and as in as many positions) as he could. But he also knew they were his weak point. He didn't like killing women, for example; even female ghosts made him hesitate. Always had. 

That got him in a lot of trouble, first from his dad, and then from himself, because while there weren't many evil female supernatural beings, they sure liked Sammy. From the shtriga on up, Sam had a lot more luck with dead girls than with living ones.

Yeah, Dean thought, trudging along one dirt-packed tunnel of the witch's underground burrow, If Sam was into necrophilia, he would've had no problem finding chicks.

Sam was gone so Dean helpfully supplied his protest, high and shrill (even though Sam's voice hadn't been that high these past twelve years or so, possibly ever). _"Gawd, Dean, you're so immature!"_

Dean rolled his eyes and answered himself: "Then why is it always you, Sam?" He ticked women off on his fingers: "The shtriga, Constance, Bloody Mary, Meg, and now this witch … Let's not kid ourselves: Dead + female + evil equals: Sam love."

No one answered him, because he was of course alone, trudging along a damp dark tunnel that led probably to a trap, all in search of his missing brother.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"SAM!" Dean thundered, for maybe the fiftieth time, and his yell bounced back at him from the tunnel walls. He even stopped trudging to listen, but he was disappointed, as he had been the last forty-nine times; his brother was not going to answer him.

It was two days since the witch had taken Sam in exchange for a hostage she had taken, a little girl maybe eleven years old. It had been a shitty-ass job even before that – mass kidnappings, mass memory wipes, all wrapped up in an isolated New Hampshire town with uncooperative police officers – and well, when they finally cornered the responsible witch in the midst of another midnight kidnapping, Dean was apprehensive but willing to switch hostages when the witch offered.

Sam was more than willing. He, apparently, didn't see anything fishy about the way the witch's face had glowed when her sightless eyes landed on him. He was also completely confident about the plan, which had Dean blasting her with salt from a hidden gun when she began chanting the rituals to transport herself and Sam away.

What neither of them had anticipated was the first ritual she used, which was a blindness spell – on _Dean_.

That canceled any ideas he had about shooting anyone. And the sound of Sam yelling his name over the witch's chanting while Dean stood there, useless, still had him starting awake at night. But when the blindness spell wore off, half an hour later, he'd started on the witch's trail again.

This was where it had led him.

"SAM!" Dean called again, just for good measure, and stopped short when the sound didn't bounce the same way the others had. He stood there for a moment, trying to figure out what was different about it.

"SAM?"

He inched forward, keeping one hand on the wall to guide him in the darkness, the other palm on the butt of the shotgun. And then he saw it, maybe thirty feet ahead: a circle of faint light radiating out from the tunnel floor.

Dean hurried forward. Could it be--?

He came to the edge and found himself staring down into a pit. Ten, maybe fifteen-foot walls of hard-packed dirt, and a circular floor maybe ten feet across at the bottom. And the flickering candlelight illuminated what looked a lot like a human figure in the center of the floor.

"Sam?"

No answer. The figure didn't move.

"The hard way it is," Dean muttered, and unzipped his backpack to find the rope.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

It took him ten minutes to get down the walls. Ten minutes in which the figure in the center didn't move, not at all, and Dean was getting freaked out, because he was pretty damn sure it was Sam.

He dropped the last four feet with a thump and landed on his feet.

Sam was kneeling in the center of a circle drawn in what looked like blood. Ho, shit, thought Dean. That was never a good start to anything. Smaller numbers and symbols lined the inside ring of the circle; it was clearly meant to keep something in. Meant to keep Sam in, and consequently, not to keep Dean out. Thank God.

And double shit. Sam was blindfolded. His hands disappeared, probably tied, behind his back. Blood spilled down from his nose and the corner of his mouth, which was slightly open.

"Fuckin A," Dean said, and got down on his knees in front of Sam.

Dean was prepared for almost anything. Anything, he thought, when he ripped the blindfold from Sam's face, and man, that ugly mug had never looked so good to him in his life, even though it was battered and bruised and what looked like tear tracks down his nose.

Sam blinked slowly at the light, focused his eyes on Dean.

And his face _fell_.

Yeah, Dean was prepared for anything. Except that.

"Sam – it's me, Dean!" He waved his hand in front of Sam's face. "Dude. Bro. You look like shit."

To Dean's astonishment, Sam wasn't even listening. He was looking past Dean all around the room, taking in the walls and shelves of unlabeled bottles. "Full circle, huh," he muttered, clearly more to himself than Dean.

"You're freakin me out, Sam. You aren't makin sense. Come on. Let's get out of here."

Sam shook his head slowly, sending fat drops of blood spattering to the floor. "You can do whatever you want, buddy," he said. "It doesn't mean anything to me." His voice rasped in his throat, making it sound even more foreign.

"What?"

Sam didn't say anything. His eyes were back in the distance again.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Dean snapped.

And Sam _laughed._ He laughed, a short barking sound that Dean hadn't heard since Sam was in middle school and caught in the throes of adolescent cynicism.

"Ho boy. Okay, Sammy boy. I get it. Slight psychosis from captivity. Well, I can deal with that. After we get you out of here." He looked behind Sam to see how his brother's hands were bound. The answer was: nastily. His wrists were tied with what looked like thorny vines, which had cut into his skin and trailed thin lines of blood down his hands. Dean hissed in sympathy and reached for his knife.

Sam didn't move as Dean sliced through the thorns. But Dean felt him exhale a shaky breath as his newly freed arms slid forward to rest, trembling slightly, on the ground.

"Feel better?" Dean asked, and got to his feet. "Let's go."

Sam ignored him.

This was a bit much. "Get _up_, Sam, unless you want to stay here till the witch comes back? Because the barrier I put up won't last forever." As if to prove his point, the walls shook slightly, sending a small shower of dust from the ceiling down upon them both. "We gotta move."

When Sam didn't move, Dean lost his patience and reached down to yank him to his feet – he was going to get his brother out of here, and deal with the consequences later. A mental age reversal maybe? but he sure hoped it wasn't that, because those kinds of spells were a bitch to reverse, and one year of thirteen-year-old Sam had been more than enough, thank you very much –

"_Fuck!"_ Sam gasped, and that was not something thirteen-year-old Sam said.

Dean let his hand go instantly. Sam cradled his arm to his chest, panting softly.

"What was that? What's wrong with your arm?" Dean knelt beside him, and although Sam let him look at his arm, he felt and saw Sam tensing all over.

His attention was drawn to Sam's wrist first; it was swollen, bruised, and clearly broken. "Aw, geez, Sam, I'm sorry," he said. "You shoulda said something."

Sam's lips were pressed together in a thin line. "I thought you would have remembered from last time."

"Last time what? Since when have you broken a wrist?" Dean sat back on his haunches. "Let's see. You broke your leg when you were twelve. Sprained an ankle, that same one I think, when you were fifteen, a couple of concussions – nope, no wrists."

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what _did_ you mean?" Dean was fed up. "Jesus, Sam!"

Sam speared him with a look so full of hatred that Dean reeled back. "The last time you freed me," he said. "The last time you got me out of here. Course, _that_ Dean noticed right away. Gotta switch it up, don't you?"

Alarm bells clanged in Dean's head.

"Sam," he said cautiously, "Do you think I'm a shapeshifter? I'm not. This here? This is all Dean."

Sam barely bothered to roll his eyes. "Whatever. I don't know why you bother anymore."

Dean sat and watched him wind the gauze awkwardly around his wrist. "What do I have to do to convince you that I'm not a shapeshifter?" he burst out finally.

Sam turned a gaze on him that sent shivers skittering down his spine. He looked at Dean like Dean was the lowest of the low, the slimiest cockroach they'd ever found in a trailerpark during their sojourn in Alabama when Dean was twelve.

"You can't," Sam spat. "The next time you die, I don't even plan to be there."

"How many times have I died, Sam?"

That made his brother stop to think.

"This'll make eighteen, I guess," Sam said. "Drowning, hanging, stabbed, shot – you've covered all the major bases by now. So tell me – how do I match up with the others you've taken? Just morbidly curious, I guess. Did it take me more or less time to figure out what was going on?"

It all snapped into place.

"The witch," Dean whispered. "You think I'm the witch."

"I don't think it, witch," Sam said. "I know it."

* * *

tbc 


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N**: Welcome to the second chapter! Hope you enjoy, and as always, please share your thoughts. I'm also looking for a beta, if anyone has recommendations. Thanks!

* * *

It all snapped into place. 

"The witch," Dean whispered. "You think I'm the witch."

"I don't think it, witch," Sam said. "I know it."

* * *

CHAPTER TWO.

* * *

While Dean pondered how to respond to this, his brother added, "I see you brought the knapsack this time. That's a nice touch. There a first-aid kit in there?" 

Dean silently handed him the knapsack. Sam unbuttoned it and rifled through the contents. "Nice. This set of knives? That's Dean's favorite. That's good; but you forgot the salt. Dean wouldn't go anywhere without salt."

"I used it for the barrier," Dean said automatically, a little defensively. "Dude, Sam. This _is_ Dean. The handsome mug, the fantastic hunting skills – are you seriously doubting it?"

"Cut it out," Sam said. "I like it better when we're frank with each other."

"And the witch has been, what – making you hallucinate?" Dean looked around at the room, seeing the incense this time, some of them still burning, filling the room with a heavy sticky sweetness. "And you've been hallucinating me." He swallowed. "My death."

"Deaths," Sam corrected.

"God, Sam." Dean could hardly get the words out. "That's – you – "

"Quit it with the drama, okay?" Sam wiped some of the blood from his face with cotton in the first-aid kit, then gathered his feet under him and stood. He wavered slightly, but kept upright. Dean stayed on the ground, staring up at him. "Remember, you're just another hallucination."

Sam looked up at the rope that still dangled from the tunnel above. "Damn, is that how you got down here?"

"Yeah," Dean said automatically. _Humor him_, he thought. He would play along with this for now, as long as Sam was willing to work with him to get out. After they got the hell out of this burrow, then he would work on fixing Sam.

"Well, I can't climb out," his brother prompted.

"Not with a broken bone, I guess."

"Two."

"That's – wait, two?"

"Wrist," Sam raised his hand, "and collarbone." He pulled down the collar of his shirt to reveal something bruised and red and awful-looking.

"_Collarbone?_ What the fuck, Sam? Why didn't you tell me about that?" Dean jumped to his feet and reached for Sam. Sam drew back.

"Don't touch me," Sam whispered harshly, and they stared into each other's eyes for a moment.

And then Dean stood back, because it had occurred to him that maybe it would convince Sam that it was really him.

Sam turned away from him, and for a long moment they were both silent. Then Sam squared his shoulders and said, still not looking at his brother, "How are you planning to get me out of here?"

"You're the one with the brain," Dean said.

Sam looked up at the lip of the hole again, and Dean could see the gears turning in his head. _That_ was like the Sam he knew.

"What did you tie the rope to?"

"Stakes," Dean said. "I brought stakes, just in case, cuz I don't know what will kill this bitch. Up there is a tunnel and the dirt on the floor is pretty hard-packed, so I pounded two into the ground and used them to secure the rope."

Sam studied him carefully. "Flaw," he announced, loudly, as if he had just spotted the mistake in a math problem. "_My_ Dean would never think of that. Better luck next time, witch."

Dean gaped incredulously. "Wh -- screw you, Sam!"

"Go on then; climb up, and you'll have to pull me up after."

"I do not _believe_ you," Dean muttered, hefting the knapsack onto his shoulders. "Witch hallucination or not – you are gonna _pay_ for that. How are you going to hold onto the rope with a broken wrist, anyway?"

"I'll tie it around me."

"Better check the knots twice. You might fall and knock some sense into your

head."

Dean shimmied up the rope with the same technique that had earned him the praise of his fourth-grade gym teachers. Dean _killed_ at gym class. When he got to the top, he checked the knots that he had tied around the stakes, and was pleased to find them as tight as he'd first tied them. At least something was still straight in this world.

"You ready?" Sam called from below.

"Hold on," Dean said. "I might be able to rig something like a pulley out of this." He studied the stakes. It was easier to pull a weight with a pulley, right? Well, he didn't have a wheel, but he did have several stakes. He slipped the rope around one and tugged on it experimentally. It moved smoothly enough. He'd show Sam, that doubting asshole.

It _was_ easier to pull Sam up than he'd anticipated, but Dean suspected that had a little to do with his pseudo-pulley system and a lot more to do with the weight that Sam had clearly lost over the past few days. When they both collapsed on the floor of the tunnel, Dean was the first to roll into a crouch and then onto his feet. Sam stayed down for a few more moments.

Dean had the idea that Sam would bat away his hand if he offered, it so instead he said, "So dude … do you remember how you got down here?"

"No."

"Have you seen it before, in one of the … the hallucinations?"

"No."

"What _do_ you remember, then?"

Sam got up carefully, as if he was sore, and stretched. "The last time I saw y—Dean—was at the Morrisons' house. I was out for a long time, I think. Then you started up with the hallucinations. And here I am."

"Have you ever seen her? The witch?"

Sam glanced sideways at him. "Other than right now?"

Frustration bubbled up in Dean but he squashed it back. "Other than right now."

"No. Not in person."

"I think she's a _sorgina_," Dean said. "A Basque witch. A lot fits. They operate on Fridays, which is when she took you. _Sorginak_ also live in caves; that's where we are. Hey. Are you even listening? I'm telling you what took you!"

"Not really interested," Sam said, investigating his fingernails. "Can we get going yet?"

"Which way do you want to go then, genius?" snapped Dean. "The tunnel I came from leads to the witch. And I have no fucking idea where the other way leads."

Sam shrugged. "Let's go the other way, then."

"Your funeral," were the words that sprang to Dean's mind, but he clamped his jaw down over them.

They walked. Sam's head barely scraped the top of the dirt tunnel, so he had to walk with his head tipped slightly to one side. Dean led the way. As they traveled further away from the pit, with its small circle of candlelight, the blackness of the tunnel grew until Dean was feeling along the walls to find his way forward. Once or twice they passed holes in the walls, entrances to other tunnels in the burrow. They agreed that it was better to keep going straight, in case they needed to turn around to go back the way they'd come. The tunnel stretched on and on, though, and Dean was starting to wonder if they'd made the right choice. He also couldn't stop himself from glancing back at Sam every few minutes, to make sure he was really there.

"What would you do if I was Eurydice?" Sam's voice floated up to him after the third time he looked back.

"_Now_ what gibberish are you talking about?"

"Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus followed Eurydice down to hell, and Hades let him take her back, but only if Orpheus never looked back at her during the journey back to earth. It's Greek mythology."

"Who in the what now?"

Sam laughed, and it sounded a little more normal. Dean felt the knot in his chest ease a little bit at the sound.

"Look, Sam," Dean said again, deciding to press his luck, "what do I have to do to convince you that this is reality?"

At that, Sam's voice, which had softened, got hard again. "You can't."

"But there's gotta be somethin. Ask me anything – any random memory, anything you know that only I would know."

"Don't you see why that's useless? You've got my memories. You've got access to the same things that I know about Dean, so why would that prove anything? And besides," Sam paused, "I don't know why you're so worked up. You haven't got much time to do it, anyway; you're gonna die again soon."

No matter how often he did it, Dean could not get over Sam dropping bombshells like that. Frustration at everything – this shitty job, this witch, this sudden complication with Sam – bubbled up and he couldn't hold it back.

"Dammit, Sam! I'm not gonna die!"

"You can't promise me that!" Sam shot back, and he sounded really angry now. They had stopped, and Dean had turned around, although neither of them could see each other in the darkness of the tunnel. "Not even if you were real. _My_ Dean wouldn't want me to believe things he couldn't back up!"

"I _AM_ YOUR DEAN! So I'll say whatever the fuck I want! If I say I won't die, then I won't!"

"I," said Sam, low and furiously, "like any sane person, only have so much emotion to spare. And I will not watch the death of another person I care about. So when _you_ die, _I'm not going to care about it_."

The ground opened up beneath Dean and left him floundering. "You don't seriously mean that," he said uncertainly.

"I definitely do," Sam said, too loudly.

The dirt walls swallowed the echoes of their voices and left them both wrapped in complete silence.

Sam was the first to move. "Let's go," he said.

Dean didn't understand his rush. After all, his brother thought this was another hallucination to end with his death. But slowly he turned his back to his brother and walked forward once again.

"_I'm not going to care about you,"_ Dean's subconscious sang, over and over, in tune with his footsteps. "_I'm not going to care about you."_ He had had no idea, when he started, how bad this was going to get.

"I'm not going to care about you."

_Then why are you following me?_

Dean spun around.

Sam was gone.

* * *

tbc 


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: MY GOD I'M SORRY. No excuse for this absence. Hope some of you will give it a try anyway. Am almost finished, will post again promptly._

_A quick summary to date: Sam is kidnapped by a witch after a hunt gone wrong; Dean tracks him down in the witch's underground maze; but Sam's been trapped in a virtual reality where Dean dies over and over, and refuses to believe it's the real Dean.  
_

_P.S. Note: this was totally written before Mystery Spot. That, or I secretly communicate with Eric Kripke. You'll never know!_

* * *

"Look, Sam," Dean said again, deciding to press his luck, "what do I have to do to convince you that this is reality?"

At that, Sam's voice, which had softened, got hard again. "You can't."

"But there's gotta be somethin. Ask me anything – any random memory, anything you know that only I would know."

"Don't you see why that's useless? You've got my memories. You've got access to the same things that I know about Dean, so why would that prove anything? And besides," Sam paused, "I don't know why you're so worked up. You haven't got much time to do it, anyway; you're gonna die again soon."

No matter how often he did it, Dean could not get over Sam dropping bombshells like that. Frustration at everything – this shitty job, this witch, this sudden complication with Sam – bubbled up and he couldn't hold it back.

"Dammit, Sam! I'm not gonna die!"

"You can't promise me that!" Sam shot back, and he sounded really angry now. They had stopped, and Dean had turned around, although neither of them could see each other in the darkness of the tunnel. "Not even if you were real. _My_ Dean wouldn't want me to believe things he couldn't back up!"

"I _AM_ YOUR DEAN! So I'll say whatever the fuck I want! If I say I won't die, then I won't!"

"I," said Sam, low and furiously, "like any sane person, only have so much emotion to spare. And I will not watch the death of another person I care about. So when _you_ die, _I'm not going to care about it_."

The ground opened up beneath Dean and left him floundering. "You don't seriously mean that," he said uncertainly.

"I definitely do," Sam said, too loudly.

The dirt walls swallowed the echoes of their voices and left them both wrapped in complete silence.

Sam was the first to move. "Let's go," he said.

Dean didn't understand his rush. After all, his brother thought this was another hallucination to end with his death. But slowly he turned his back to his brother and walked forward once again.

"_When you die, I'm not going to care,"_ Dean's subconscious sang, over and over, in tune with his footsteps. "_I'm not going to care."_ He had had no idea, when he started, how bad this was going to get.

"I'm not going to care."

_Then why are you following me?_

Dean spun around.

Sam was gone.

* * *

CHAPTER THREE

Sam breathed in, out, soft and slow, counting. In. Out.

At a hundred and eighty seven, he heard footsteps and then cursing. "Sam!" yelled the thing that looked like his brother, and then again: "SAM!"

Sam stayed where he was, his long limbs folded up against the wall of one of the alternate tunnels they'd passed. His breath hissed loudly in his ears and he tried to soften it.

"Little piece of fucking _shit!_" his brother swore, his voice getting louder as he drew closer to Sam's hiding spot. "I cannot believe you are doing this to me. Christ on a motherfucking cr_acker!_"

Sam's mouth opened, and then he clamped his jaw shut. He hadn't heard Dean say that since Pastor Jim overheard them at a grave-dig in Sacramento when Dean was seventeen. That fucking witch, always getting back underneath his skin, no matter how he tried to shut her out.

The Dean-thing was in front of him now, stomping far more loudly than should have been possible on a dirt floor. "When I get ahold of you, you're gonna wish that pussy-ass school had never let you leave," it hissed.

_Too late,_ thought Sam, _I already wish that_. He shut his eyes and leaned back against the wall. The footsteps carried on past him without pause, and soon his name was bouncing off the walls far ahead of him.

Sam let out the breath he was holding and stretched his legs out, then got carefully to his feet. The break in his collarbone was throbbing dully again. He leaned his back against the wall and tried to think. He didn't have a plan. He needed one. His only objective had been getting away from the Dean-thing.

It was time to explore the limits of this false reality the witch had trapped him in. Each time that Dean had been his guide, it had led to Dean's death. Sometimes it ended there, after Dean had fallen off the cliff, and he was whisked off to the next hallucination, or sometimes the witch let him linger there, in the woods or the desert or an alleyway, his brother's body a lump of cold meat beside him.

That wasn't going to happen again; not if he ditched Dean first.

He rubbed his palm against the wall, feeling dirt clods crumble away at his touch. Underneath his hand, the walls vibrated slightly, in time with the low, distant rumbling that had started up when they left the witchpit.

It felt so real. Dean felt so real. The witch was a true artist.

Sam flattened his palm and used it to push his body off the wall. He turned and headed down the pitch-black side tunnel, away from the receding sound of his name still being called.

* * *

Dean quit calling Sam's name after fifteen minutes of silence, and stopped only because he'd run into the lip of the hole where he had so briefly found his brother.

God, this sucked. He'd lost his damn brother. Granted, he was pretty sure, if not positive, that Sam had purposely hidden from him. He'd spent the time walking back trying to put himself in his brother's shoes. Sure – if Sam was so sure that Dean was going to die, he might run away from him. But to where? His brother had denied seeing the witch's warren in his other hallucinations. Had he lied? And most importantly, how the fuck could he find his brother in this maze?

There were innumerable side tunnels that Sam could have taken. The answer was: he couldn't find his brother by luck alone. His best chance was not to try to follow Sam, to find the witch herself.

Dean had not been able to find much about the _sorginak_, the witches from the Basque-speaking regions of France and Spain. His father had briefly visited the topic in his journal. From him Dean knew that _sorginak_ drew their powers from spells that had to be first laid down in herbs, then activated by chanting. And the blindness spell that the _sorgina_ had cast on Dean when she first took Sammy had only lasted half an hour; he hoped that was standard – and if it was, then she had to be renewing Sam's hallucination spell every half hour.

And he guessed the witch had to return here if she wanted to fix the spell on Sam.

It was a moment's work to set up the rope and to slide to the bottom of the pit. His thumbs burned on the way down this time, and he opened his palm to find the red beginnings of blisters on both hands. Sam notices this later?

This time he took a minute to canvass the circular walls of the pit. He had noticed the dull gleam of glass bottles in the flickering candlelight before, and seen that most of them were unlabeled; now he picked up the jars to find the usual witch's array – mostly herbs, a few unpleasant bottled specimens of who-knew-what floating spider or eel.

The air suddenly turned cold and Dean sprang into action, scrambled to flatten himself against the far wall of the pit, well aware that a cold spot accompanied paranormal activity. The witch was coming.

She shimmered into view a moment later. She looked just as Dean remembered her: wispy white hair, wrapped in a huge furry-looking coat, and almost like someone's (very aged) grandmother until she turned and the large sightless brown eyes settled directly on him.

Shit.

"_Anaia_," she rasped at him, and her face closed up in anger and she raised her twisted hands.

"Fucking hell," Dean spat, and went for the revolver at his hip.

* * *

Sam got a faceful of cobweb. Again.

He tried to pull it off him intact, but the strands stuck to his hands and twined around his fingers. The silky-stranded web was huge – it stretched from ceiling to floor and spanned the tunnel width. He tried not to think about the size of the spider that must have spun it.

On the other hand, that must mean that no one had gone down this tunnel for a long time. He couldn't figure out whether that was bad or good. It was half an hour since he had ditched Dean in the maze of tunnels, and the side trail he'd chosen continued to wind. It was frightening. He almost wished for his fake brother back. Almost. He could imagine himself condemned to wander in the tunnels without end.

Was it possible that the witch could lose him in her own mind?

Could he exist as nothing more than imagination? Would he just crumble away?

* * *

Dean woke up upside down. It took him a minute to figure it out, because frankly the dirt that was making up his ceiling could have been anything. First he noticed that his head was pounding and his hands felt strangely heavy – and immobile. Then the corner of the witch's robe flapped into view, and he saw that she was standing on the ceiling and he put it together. She had pinned him upside down against the wall like a … well, an upside down bug in a collection.

"Whatre you doing?" he slurred.

The witch, who had been bent over something on the ground – ceiling – ground? straightened and turned to face him.

"Anaia." She said that foreign word again, and spoke in a different language, a phrase that ended with a raised voice. He guessed it was a question. Dean cleared his throat.

"I don't speak Basque."

She squinted at him through heavy, age-spotted eyelids for a moment, and then turned back to whatever she was doing. It looked like she was carving something; little flakes of wood littered the ceiling (no, floor, _floor, _Dean) around her.

Dean tried to wiggle his fingers experimentally. There was no rope binding him, but strong forces kept his hands down. It felt as though a giant, invisible hand was pinning him to the wall. The belt containing all of his weapons was gone from his hip, and he could see his precious salt-containing knapsack leaned against the far wall.

Damn. Dean had fucked up. He thought he knew what the witch was capable of; thought she needed time to lay down a spell before it took effect. Clearly, he was wrong. The spell that had knocked him out was almost instantaneous. He hadn't even been able to get to his gun.

Frustration filled him. The fucking witch only spoke Basque. Then why was she so obsessed with his brother?

"What do you _want_?" he burst out.

The witch, back turned, didn't move. "_Euskal herria,_" she whispered, and this time it was definitely sad. Dean bit back a curse. Fucking foreign languages! Then:

"Home," she said. Dean did a double take.

"You can speak English?"

She didn't answer, just chipped faster at whatever she was carving. Wood shavings curled away from her knife, which glinted in the dim candlelight.

Dean shifted in impatience. The blood rushing to his head was making him dizzy, and being pinned spread-eagled upside down made him feel vulnerable. "What do you want with my brother?" he demanded.

"Your _anaia?_" the witch said in raspy, thickly accented English. She sounded about a thousand years old. "Your anaia . . . Sam."

"Yes – Sam! Where is he?"

She shook her head. "The anaia. He is lost."

The hairs on the back of Dean's neck stood up. "_You_ lost him!" he practically shouted at her.

"No. You. You break … you broke it."

"_I _– You're the one who made him think I was dead!"

"_Nire_ _sorginkeria_. My spell. You broke it. You lost the anaia. Now I bring him back. With you."

"I'm not doing anything for you!"

She got up heavily, joints popping, and Dean took a moment to rage at the injustice: were it a physical fight, he could kick her ass to Toledo in an instant.

Then, knife in hand, carved wood thing – it looked like a cup -- the witch was in front of him. "Hey! What are you doing?" Dean yelped, and struggled against the invisible grip. The witch just calmly reached out with her knife to slice a diagonal cut across his forearm. Dean watched as blood snaked down his arm to pool in the carved wooden cup. When the cup was full of Dean's blood, she pulled it away.

"This," she said, waving the cup in front of his face, "brings the anaia back, see?"

"Oh, _shit_," Dean breathed.

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MORE TO FOLLOW

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	4. Chapter 4

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_A/N: Thanks for the response, guys! As promised. One more chap to go! Language & violence warning comes into play here._

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CHAPTER FOUR

The witch walked away from Dean to kneel on the floor, at the edge of the circle of blood that had originally trapped Sam. She dipped her finger in the cup of blood – _my _blood, Dean thought angrily – and began to trace a new set of blood markings. From where he was pinned, Dean could see that she was redrawing the gaps where Dean had destroyed the circle when he rescued Sam the first time. There were also new markings, this time both inside and outside the circle.

"You can't use _my _blood to trap Sam!" Dean yelled at her, knowing it wouldn't make any difference. "That's cheating!" As before, the witch ignored him, working steadily. But he could see her finger trembling where she spread the blood.

"Why do you _want_ Sam?" he asked, trying a different tack.

"Home," she explained. "He will bring me to home. To _euskal herria_."

"Home … You mean to _Basque? _In _Europe?_"

The witch nodded vigorously. "_Euskal herria_," she said again, dreamily.

"What, plane tickets cost too much?" He stared at her. "Sam isn't telekinetic. He doesn't have that kind of power. Besides, can't you just send yourself there?"

"No," she shook her head. "Mine not … not good. I need Sam."

Dean lapsed into silence, thinking. It still didn't add up. That explained her kidnapping Sam. It did not explain why she had kept Sam trapped in that elaborate virtual reality for so long.

"Why did you make him think I was dead?" he asked.

She pointed at herself. "Ekaitz. I am Ekaitz. I am lost. I need to go home. I need Sam to help.

"So Sam must be lost too."

* * *

"I'm fucking _lost,_" Sam groused to nobody in particular – least of all himself.

The tunnels wound on and on, but Sam had slowed down considerably. Trapped in the absolute blackness of the tunnels, he would be easy prey if something came after him.

Okay, so leaving the Deanthing might have been a mistake. At least there he knew he existed, or knew that the witch knew he existed, which was enough. What if this was just the first step toward disappearing completely inside the witch's mind?

…. Okay. Paranoia. Not helping, Winchester.

Sam stopped. The vibrations of the walls, which he could feel through the soles of his boots, were increasing. He stopped, knelt, put his good hand to the ground. Yes. Definitely increasing.

Then, without warning, his head blasted open and flooded him with images. Dean, a towheaded child, huge in Sam's eyes; Dean a teenager, his features sharpening into adulthood; Dean in a hundred different scrapes they'd gotten themselves into, toting a gun and a trickle of blood and a determined slant to his mouth; last – flickered by almost instantaneously – Dean spread-eagled against a wall, blood on outstretched arms.

Sam reeled, blindsided, smashed his left shoulder against the wall and cried out as the impact shuddered through his broken collarbone. Bright flowers of light exploded before his eyes, and the last limited perception of the tunnel walls around him dissolved.

He had time to recognize the sensation (yes, it had _definitel_y happened to him before) before the world collected itself around him again. The sudden light, after the darkness of the tunnels, dilated his pupils.

And then the ground rushed up to meet him – he hadn't realized he had been in the air – and Sam landed on his side, hard. All the air went out of him in a gasp, leaving him no breath to express the searing, shattering pain of his collarbone meeting the unforgiving floor.

He rolled limply onto his back, stars swimming in his vision. Something big and dark loomed over him and embarrassingly, his first instinct was to flail at it using his one good hand. A bad idea, as it turned out.

Then someone caught his wrist and gripped it hard. Sam pulled back, but the grip was iron as it dragged him maybe a foot across the floor. His vision still spun crazily. Dirt, walls, weak light glinting off glass, and he was released. He struggled onto his stomach and up onto one elbow (which was insanely hard with only one good arm).

Movement at the corner of his eye had him turning.

It was Dean, pinned spread-eagled against the dirt wall, upside down. _Shit. _Not Dean.

"Sam! Sam, Jesus, there you are!"

Sam ignored him. Beside Dean was the witch, bent over a small fire on the ground.

He gaped. It was the first time he'd seen her since his first capture. Doubt flickered in the corners of his mind, but he pushed it away – if he was going to fall for another trick, it wouldn't be one as simple as this one.

Sam pushed himself to his knees. He was back in the same circle that the last Dean had rescued him from, only now more markings, drawn sloppily in fresh blood, radiated out from the perimeter of the circle.

"Aren't you done yet?" he called to the witch, who heaved herself to her feet and Sam saw she had been bent over a kettle set in the fire. She had a wooden cup in her hand, and as it tilted lazily in her grasp, he saw the inside was stained dark with blood.

Only Dean's furious voice answered. "She's already set up her spell. Sam! Sam, boy, you are gonna get it so bad when this is over if you don't react to what I'm sayin'. Hey, lady, you better keep that goddamn knife away from me, cause I got no more blood to donate to this fucked-up cause of yours. Hey! Hey! Didn't you –"

"Dean?" Sam said hoarsely.

"About fucking time! Listen, I know what she wants to do. She – _ow!_" Dean broke off as the witch sliced another brutal gash across his other arm. The blood welled thickly into the waiting cup.

Sam flinched and started to his feet at Dean's yelp of pain. "Hey! Don't –"

The youngest Winchester was stuck there, frozen, as he realized he had fallen for the witch's tricks _yet again. _He was so dumb! For all the good fucking Stanford had done him, for all that he had conditioned himself.

He was _so stupid._

"Hey, can you get out of that circle?" the Dean-thing's voice came to him, stretched tight with pain.

"Why would I bother?" Sam snapped, hands fisting at his sides. "Just – just stop, don't make me hear it, okay? I don't want to hear it."

"Oh, this again? Christ, Sam, snap out of it. Just try for me, okay? See if you can stick your hand out that circle. If you just try out we can get out of here. I promise – you just gotta _trust _me."

And completely of their own accord, Sam's fingers reached out to encounter the edge of the blood circle. They smacked up against fiery pain and Sam snatched his hand back.

Dean looked as though he didn't know whether to be grateful or disappointed. "Okay, that didn't work. We'll figure something else out, okay?"

But instead of replying, Sam wrapped his arms around himself and turned his back on his brother and the witch against the wall.

"_Fuck,"_ Dean hissed.

The witch, beside him, raised her arm and the cup of blood traced a long splatter of Dean's blood, reaching from the two of them to Sam's circle.

"Careful with that!" Dean snapped. "That's my blood you're sloshing all over the damn floor!"

She didn't answer, just used the last of his blood in the cup to draw three short lines across each of her leathery arms – "Gross," Dean moaned – and picked up the knife again. She crossed the room in three quick strides and when she reached inside the circle to nick Sam's hand – his bad arm – Sam hardly reacted, just hugged himself tighter.

Sam's blood went into three more lines on each of her arms.

"Wake the fuck up, Sam," Dean commanded.

The witch's own blood crossed both of theirs on her arms, from a nick on her finger.

"You got to listen to me."

The witch stepped outside Sam's circle.

"I know what she wants to do."

She picked up the knife and came for Dean, her face completely blank, emotionless but for the intent written all over the knife.

"She needs you to make some spell to send her home. Her power isn't enough, she needs yours. She told me – _ow!_" Dean shook off the pain of the witch's knife in his arm yet again.

"She told me," he started again, his words tumbling out faster now, got to appeal to Sam's logic, that's the only way to get to him now: "She told me she is lost, so if she wants your power, she needs you to be lost too, and that's what she's doing now. Son of a _bitch!" _he gasped out loud as she sliced a line across his chest, clearly less to harvest blood and more to get Sam's attention.

Sam half turned, his arms still wrapped around his middle, his unruly hair falling across his eyes, which could not hide the tear tracks down his face. "Stop," he begged, and Dean's insides twisted. "Please don't make it worse than it already is."

"Sam," he said helplessly. "Goddamn, Sam, I don't _want_ to put you through this! That's why you gotta do something!"

"No more talking," snapped the witch, and she slashed sideways with the knife, opening a long rip in Dean's black shirt, the tip coming to rest at Dean's sternum. Her low chanting filled the air and Dean knew she was starting the final spell, the one that would kill him, Sam, or all three of them.

"Sam!" he pleaded. "Sam, please!"

"No!" Sam cried. "Please, stop! Just – don't make me hear it again!" His long form doubled over, hands stuck over his ears.

Dean puffed out a breath, determined not to yell, but a poorly stifled scream split the air as the witch buried her knife in his side and _twisted, _oh sweet Jesus –

Sam cracked.

"_NO!"_

The sound of his younger brother finally shattering reached Dean only faintly through the blood that was pounding in his ears, and it was bittersweet – that sound could only mean Sam was both broken and was _going to get them free._

The witch shrieked as her carefully laid bloodspell blew apart before their eyes. Dirt scattered and wind whipped the tiny cavern. Sam was turned towards them now, both hands out, his hair on end.

"I tried!" Sam sobbed. Tears streaked his face. Dean flinched at the sight. "God help me, I tried but I _can not watch it again."_

One by one the glass jars along the cavern walls shattered, sending a hail of glass shards to the floor. The walls shook. The witch took a step towards Sam and raised her hands – started her own counterspell – but Sam was too caught up now, and her spell was meaningless, a jumble of syllables caught up in the maelstrom that was Dean's younger brother, someone Dean had always known was too powerful to contain with words.

One by one the spells the witch had created were undone. The force pinning Dean to the wall vanished, and in a painful haze he slid to the floor in a heap and everything else faded.

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	5. Epilogue

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CHAPTER FIVE

Dean woke up to the bitter antiseptic smell of a hospital and the sweeter sight of his kid brother passed out with his head pillowed on Dean's cot.

Still alive, then; both of them. Dean wasn't a praying man, but that didn't mean he didn't send a little thanks heavenward now and then.

His own body felt sluggish, like a car engine still warming up. He recognized the pleasant muddled feeling of quality drugs, and he could feel bandages wrapped tightly around his chest and shoulders.

Sam's dark hair was spread out on the white bedclothes, his face pressed down into the sheets. He'd slept that way ever since he was little. Dean used to turn him over, afraid that he'd suffocate, but Sam always ended up in the same position anyway, so Dean had eventually quit trying.

A wave of affection and gratitude swept over him, and he couldn't stop his hand from reaching out to rest gently on top of Sam's hair.

Sam twitched at the touch, mumbled something, and Dean took his hand away as his brother yawned and raised his head. Apprehension swept over Dean, and he was suddenly afraid that Sam would still jerk away, deny this reality.

"Dean," Sam yawned.

"Yeah, wake up Sleeping Beauty. Go find your own cot, wouldja?" Dean watched him carefully.

"You've been asleep for a long time."

"How long?"

"Coupla days." He straightened – a muscle popped in his back – and Dean saw that Sam's wrist was casted and in a sling that immobilized most of his left side. That collarbone really was broken, then.

"Ah geez, didn't that hurt to sleep like that?"

Sam glanced down and looked a little surprised to see all the bandaging. "No, they got me on some pretty heavy-duty painkillers," he admitted.

"Oh, good, I guess. About the drugs, I mean." Dean cleared his throat, looked at the blank TV, the ceiling, the curtains of the room. "Sam," he started, and hesitated. "Are you – are you, uh, are you …?"

A little of the sleep still clouding Sam's eyes cleared, and he looked down.

"You mean, am I still thinking this isn't real?"

His brother nodded, and Sam shook his head. "No. I felt it when the witch died."

"What?" Dean said sharply.

Sam swallowed.

"She's dead."

The words stayed there. Dean wasn't sure what to say. He was navigating unknown waters. He felt like he always was, these days, with Sam. It hadn't always been that way.

"I'm sorry."

Sam looked surprised. "Why? It wasn't you. It wasn't your fault."

"No," Dean said. He looked at the ceiling. "We should have gone into this with a better plan – before this whole thing started. We had no idea what we were walking into."

"We usually don't," Sam pointed out.

"I know. I think – We've been slacking. Dad taught us better than that." The words stuck on the roof of Dean's mouth.

Sam waited.

"I mean, is all, it took me so long to get to you, and you got stuck there, and it was a dumbass plan in the first place – " Dean struggled to finish; his eyelids were drooping. Stupid drugs. "We got to step up our game, is what I mean."

"We can do that," Sam said. "Just rest up, hey? We got a lot ahead of us."

"I know. Sam, man." Just had to get this last bit out before the drugs pulled him under. "Glad you're back."

"Me too."

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A/N: Hope you enjoyed, and please consider leaving some thoughts!

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